One Before the Other
by talking cockerel
Summary: Zero always knew that given their different lifespans, they would go one before the other, and he would be first. He never thought Kaname would have to be held, cradled...dying. Kaname/Zero


Kohei had been a town of peace and scenic beauty, with quaint little stone and wood houses and soil paved roads. It had been a town of lively children and laughing mothers, hotblooded youths printing beneath water fountains; a little station of warmth, friendliness and freshly baked bread.

It had been that way, merely a week ago.

Zero Kiryuu cared not for the utter ruin that had once been the town of Kohei. He flew off his motorbike before it could even break completely, and ran.

He flew over mutilated corpses and severed limbs; he leapt over the wrecked remains of carts and wooden beams; he clambered over the debris of fallen buildings, cutting his hands and knees carelessly.

Acrid smoke burnt his nostrils, and he inhaled it unthinkingly. Clouds of ash choked his trachea, and these he swallowed with a gulp.

It was unthinkable, really, he told himself, that he was here. Laughable, really. Over reacting, as usual. He was making such a mountain out of a molehill.

Zero wrenched his foot out from where it had gotten caught between the spokes of a wheel, and hurried on.

There he was – oh, stars above. What was he doing, lying amidst such destruction, making him all worried? That lazy fool…

Kaname was lying on his back, eyes close, arms folded on his chest.

He was sleeping.

Zero gave a strangled sob of anger. It was as if some part of him had shriveled away from the rest, cocooning itself in comfortable tangle of delusion, away from the impossible, ridiculous, insane truth.

The hunter hurried on, and Kaname made no move to show he was aware of his presence.

"What are you doing?" Zero hissed, when he had crouched over Kaname. "This is no place to be sleeping, come on, get up, get _up," _he snarled, sliding his arms under Kaname's shoulders and heaving him up. But Kaname was dead weight in his arms, and his head lolled sickeningly.

"Put me down, Zero", Kaname whispered, in a voice that was not his own. "I will not be manhandled like some sort of – invalid."

"Then get up yourself!" Zero commanded. "Get up, get up, don't just lie there, get up, _get up – " _his voice twisting in hysteria, Zero first kicked Kaname savagely, goading him to life, then grabbed the front of his shirt and tried to haul him up. But when his fingers tightened on the shirt, blood oozed from the saturated cloth - still warm from Kaname's body, and black with the lack of life.

Sobbing, Zero sank to his knees beside Kaname, wringing blood from shirt, whimpering the same words over and over like a mantra, "get up, please, get up, get up, I know you can, get up…"

"I killed them all, Zero," Kaname rasped, again in that voice that was used by the decaying and the dying, and it was not his. "I killed them all, Rido Kuran, Ichijou, the other members of the council who destroyed the race of purebloods…"

"Then you can get up and celebrate the victory with all of us," Zero said flatly, grabbing Kaname's shoulders again. Kaname answered not, and Zero collapsed, cradling the pureblood in his arms.

Tears fell fast and thick from silver lashed eyes; Zero watched as they trickled down the pureblood's handsome face, leaving clear, clean lines amidst the dust and ash on his skin.

For the first time, Zero allowed himself to look at Kaname's body.

It was still whole – but very badly mangled. There were large vicious tears in his clothes, showing torn flesh and gaping holes in his stomach. His leg bones shone, stark and ghastly amidst yellowing flesh hanging in shreds… there was blood everywhere, even in his hair.

"I killed them so you would be safe…so Yuuki would be safe. I promised her she would always be safe."

"Say it, then," Zero whispered. "Say it again!"

"Say … what, Zero?" Kaname breathed.

"Say you'll always be by my side…say you'll always be here to protect me!"

It was his desperate way of getting the pureblood to promise that he would stay alive – his way of making living obligatory, so that Kaname would survive, long enough to recover, to be whole again; he knew it in his heart, and Kaname knew it in his heart. Kaname smiled wanly.

"Hold me," Zero choked, lying over Kaname, clutching on to him desperately. "Hold me, please…"

Kaname's fingers twitched, but other than a spasm in his right arm, Kaname was as still as a breathing corpse.

"_Hold me, I said," _Zero took Kaname's hands and slid it over his own shoulder, but with no strength in their muscles, they remained for a few moments before sliding back to the ground. Zero did it again, and got the same results.

"You liar," Zero seethed. "You liar! You said it before, said you would always be here to protect me, to protect us – now, you won't even hold me - you liar!" Zero alternated between rage and misery, his voice shook and his hands quivered –

"Drink from me, Kaname," Zero begged, placing his neck right over his lips.

"No. You don't have enough for both of us."

"It is. It'll have to be."

"No." Softer but firmer but before, yet it made Zero explode in grief and fury.

"What do you mean, no? Are you just going to give up? Lie there and let your enemies win?"

Again, Kaname made no move. They both knew lack of blood wasn't the issue – in fact, even now, infinitely slowly but surely, Kaname's wounds were knitting – less of his shin bone showed than before, more of his flesh was lightening from their raw scarlet colour.

Everything about Kaname had changed, everything. The voice that belonged to the old and ill, the harsh breathing that was reminiscent of the wounded and weary; the strong, taut shoulders sagged, so cold and – loose and _light_, as if the weight and warmth of his youth and vitality had already fled.

He knew what had happened, of course. Not how exactly, but what.

The council had gone beyond the usual level of ingenuity, igniting dynamite explosives loaded with silver in a village that was surrounded by a barrier of solid air. They had known that Kaname would stay in the village, trying to help the people escape; stayed he had, while the village had burnt with the vengeance of a hundred years of vampire cruelty, with its people hammering in at the wall in vain, screaming and crying.

And all the while, the silver burnt away, fuelling the magic fire, corroding away the pureblood's lungs, breaking down the alveoli; silver ions combined with his blood cells, infecting and eating away wherever his circulatory system reached.

The council of vampire ancients had waited outside the wall, levitated and out of sight, guffawing at the sight of Kaname coughing and wheezing, like some idiot of a human smoker with emphysema – or even lung cancer, when he hacked up blood from his broken lungs. It pleased them to see him like a weakened mortal, pleased them to smell the change in his blood scent as, slowly but surely, the pure silver tainted his whole system.

When Kaname had finally forced a way through the barrier, the people rushed out in a frantic stampede, and the council members descended upon the pureblood like vultures on a kill, claws outstretched and fangs lengthened for blood.

They had beat him back ruthlessly, trading blow for blow, circling him like ravenous demons as he kept them at bay with weakening blows.

Long after the silver had dissipated into the open air, Kaname was still fighting, and the council members were taking their time, waiting for him to be finished off. The damage would remain, suffocating his body slowly but surely, for it was something his healing power was useless against; flesh and bone and skin would heal, but not his blood.

Zero knew all this. How or why the bloodbond had become so much stronger in the past few hours, he didn't know, but the first burning in his lungs, and he had flung himself in his motorbike, and already scenes from Kaname's eyes had started flashing in his mind.

"They were horrible cowards," Zero whispered, bending over Kaname's ashen face.

"That is nothing new," Kaname agreed, and even managed to get enough air to laugh hopelessly. "They had to face me in a whole group of thirteen. Even after the silver explosives."

Zero buried his face in Kaname's neck, inhaling the scent, the smell that had comforted him always.

"Please, you can't lose to these – you have to live," he begged softly.

"I did win…I just had to give something in return," Kaname whispered.

"You can't leave me, you can't, you just _can't…you're supposed to be ageless, you can't leave me!" _Zero clutched at him and wept desperately.

"A pureblood does whatever he wants," Kaname stated quietly, with that old hint of arrogance, and Zero shook with agony as he hugged the vampire, shaking his head, biting his lip, even he squeezed his eyes shut, as though he could stop crying, as though he could put up brave front for his pureblood prince.

Kaname coughed, a hacking, heart wrenching cough that tore his lungs further, and Zero moaned to hear the flesh tearing and breaking apart inside him.

For anyone else, Zero would have wanted to end their suffering for them, end the unendurable burning that Kaname felt as his very cells withered and died from the silver poison.

Instead, he licked Kaname's neck clean, kissed his shoulders, his collar bones, tore his shirt away and kissed the wounds on his chest till they were wet and glistening. He could hear Kaname sighing, almost in pleasure, as he tried to make him forget the pain.

He ran his hands over Kaname's still arms, tried to rub some warmth into them, was alarmed to feel the clammy softness where that had once been corded muscle.

"Someone once told me, that wherever I walked, the path I took would be cursed with darkness and fear and cruelty…" Kaname whispered.

"That's true, seeing as how you've brought nothing but trouble and misery into my life," Zero hiccupped. "You made me your slave, your servant, your lover, and now you're dying on me." He gave an odd, crumpled sort of smile, as though his lips were trying to curve up and down at the same time.

Zero leaned over and kissed Kaname on the lips, intent on arousing some sort of heated, passionate response from that pallid mouth.

Kaname made an effort to move, even if it was just a flick of his tongue, but just that drained him of strength.

"It should have been the other way round," Zero's eyes were wet again, and he rubbed his face against Kaname, cheek against cheek and nose to nose.

"It should have been the other way around…" Zero was loathe to move him so, but he tilted the pureblood till he was lying on his side, then slid in under his arms so that they were lying face to face, holding each other, like they always had.

It might be that every nerve was slowly burning away into oblivion, but even then, Kaname felt a tingling warmth of love in the fiber of his being.

They lay there, under the same impassive stars that had witnessed their births, their lives, and would witness their deaths. The night sky that would come and go and come again, regardless of who lived or died; the cool wind that would blow and bluster and caress, whether love was made or war was waged.

"Forgive me, Zero, but…time's up…" a soft murmur, and arms tightened Kaname's body as the boy tried to prevent his leaving.

"Five more minutes," Zero begged, like a child to his mother, a mortal to the gods.

Kaname smiled wryly.

"Zero…"

Zero trembled. He could feel the slow, sluggish pulse in Kaname's body as his heart gave out.

The night was so devoid of warmth and comfort.

Kaname breathed, and with a last, monumental effort, pulled Zero in, to his chest, tighter than he ever had, so that, just that time, their hearts beat together, simultaneously.

"Ashiteru…"

A moment later, there were still two hearts, but only one was beating.

* * *

A/N : This is my first angst fic ... I realise that it seems very different from conventional death stories...no delirious crying, not much shock or overwhelming mourning - they didnt even "memorise each other's faces for the last time", but rather, it's almost as though they're both bantering with one another. Does it make it too emotionless?

I wanted to convey the effect that both of them had accepted the inevitable danger of losing each other, simply because of the nature of their lives, and that they wanted to love each other for as long as they could.

Ah well. Thanks for reading, and review, please!


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